


(I Promise You) If You Need Me, I’ll Be There

by capsized_heart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Healing, Multi, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-04-07 00:13:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19073560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capsized_heart/pseuds/capsized_heart
Summary: The Chitauri attack on New York left you with extraordinary powers and a fragment of a strange stone in your chest. Ever since the invasion, you’ve been cynical of heroes, of the Avengers, and especially of their star-spangled leader, Steve Rogers; the man who had failed to protect you. As you and the rest of the world gather your bearings, everything you’ve come to know, including your animosity for Captain Rogers, will be challenged when you meet Wanda Maximoff.The Mad Titan is hunting Infinity Stones and you're his next target.





	1. Prologue / Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> hey there! I'm new to ao3 but I've been a fic writer on other platforms for a while now. This is also my first Marvel work so I'm super stoked!
> 
> so, this story will take place following the first Avengers and have little snippets of plot throughout the other films and (most likely) finish with Endgame - though certain events may be changed. 
> 
> you can also find me at https://capsized-heart.tumblr.com/ if you wanna stop by and say hi, yeehaw⍟
> 
> thanks so much, hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> *reader's power source is loosely inspired from the Marvel Battle Lines iOS game

**New York, 2012.**

The windows of the cafe explode into a million shards. Stunned, you shield yourself as best you can behind a booth with gritted teeth, the spray of glass nicking wherever you couldn’t protect your body quick enough. Screams ring in your ears. When you stand, you’re horrified to see civilians who hadn’t been as lucky as you, streams of crimson lacing down exposed skin, red splattered glass matching glassy eyes.

With shaking hands, you instinctively untie your work apron and press the fabric against the forehead of the young woman who had just been giving you her lunch order. The fabric darkens with blood much too quickly and you watch her eyelids flutter shut.

Your breath catches. The woman slumps forward. You need help. People push past you every which way and you’re out on the streets before you can assess her further, even check for a pulse.

The smell of scorching metal burns your nose. Dust clouds your vision. A city on fire. Acrid and toxic, mixed in with the stench of chemicals and raining ash. You want to hold your breath, to keep it from entering your lungs, but fear and panic force you to gasp in time to your thundering heartbeat. You’re forced to taste destruction.

Wailing sirens, the barrage of gunfire. You’re covered in soot in an instant and it all becomes too much. _What the hell is going on?_

The sound of something rushing above your head sends you to take cover behind an overturned police car and you look up through the smoke to see a sight that turns your blood to ice.

A pulsing wormhole right in the middle of the Manhattan skyline. Hundreds upon hundreds of creatures pour out of the cosmos on strange airships, armed to the teeth with weapons. They shriek in their alien tongue, rearing their ugly heads.

Like you, several civilians stay frozen where they’ve fallen. Never in all your life could you have ever dreamed of seeing something like this, like armageddon itself.

Someone helps you up with an urgent whisper to stay off the streets. You don’t see who. The warning hammers in your ears and you stumble forward, trying to navigate your way towards the underground subway as best you can with the smoldering cityscape. Everything looks different, disorienting. You struggle to find your balance.

More screams sound from dangerously close behind you. Blue energy soars over your shoulder and you can only watch as a pair of fleeing civilians crumple to the ground with holes burned into both their backs.

You smell charred flesh. Shock numbs your senses. Your head pounds. Weakened by smoke, adrenaline-drained, battered and bruised, you turn.

The Chitauri has the weapon leveled in your direction. It looks like a staff of sorts and the curved end glows indigo with a low hum, louder and brighter as it stays trained on you. The alien snaps its jaws in what you can only take to be twisted pleasure. Dread prickles your skin. Time seems to slow.

You wonder if anyone you know has survived the attack.

And then it fires at you square in the chest.

You don’t have time to throw your arms up in defense, to even brace, before pain shreds through you. There’s a flash of blue heat and suddenly your entire core feels like it’s being incinerated and ripped apart all at once. You anticipate the splatter of your own blood, the scorching heat in your chest to overtake you, but neither come. Instead, your own agony burns brighter, your body breaking and blazing like a collapsing star.

You should be dead by now. At least, you wish you were.

Your eyes flare azure and then you see the coils of blue light threading beneath the skin of your veins, crackling with power. Panic bubbles in your throat as you feel it approach an invisible threshold. You can’t contain this. Your nerve endings set off and you explode with cosmic energy.

The blast knocks you to your knees. You hit the ground hard, convulsing. Something inside you shifts and the heat suddenly transforms into ice, like the very weight of the universe, crushing and cold, is closing in on your chest. Your weary, painfully mortal frame vibrates, pulled thin.

Then, a figure breaks through the line of swirling dust. He carries a shield, the poise of a soldier. Golden hair falls in his eyes. Like you, he’s streaked with dirt. You watch as he throws himself into the fight, wielding both shield and vigor to disarm, destroy.

Instinct tells you he’s here to help.

You want to scream to him, anything to dispel just a breath of this unbearable pressure inside you, but whatever this ability is has left your lungs paralyzed and your voice dead in your throat.

The glow of your eyes dim. Your body burns again, but for oxygen this time. The figure darts back into the fray of battle and disappears in the smoke.

He doesn’t see you.

You lie there, balancing on your knees and fighting for air. Tears sting your sight. You’re so frightened, so alone. And then you finally find it, that trigger hidden deep within that well of power in your chest. You release it and draw breath. But it’s too late, your oxygen-starved brain gives out.

Your vision swims black and the last thing you see are the mangled corpses of the civilians you had killed in the blast.


	2. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My girl Wanda making her grand entrance, here we go! <3

**Novi Grad, Sokovia. 2015.**

Some time after the attack on New York, you find yourself in the snow-capped mountains of Novi Grad. The Chitauri invasion had left you traumatized, plagued with nightmares, anxiety, and overwhelming guilt. Textbook symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

So, you had packed up your entire life and moved to Sokovia. Not that you had much in New York anyway, aside from that waitressing job, and you figured your studies in linguistics were much more applicable in eastern Europe. Your symptoms still persist, but getting out of ground zero had significantly helped contribute to your well-being.

Sokovia is a breath of fresh air, a new beginning. The lush greenery and quaint, modest cityscape is a welcome change from the cutthroat climate of New York. The summers are pleasant and balmy, the winters lifted straight out of a fairytale with seasonal markets, festivals, and silver as far as the eye can see.

Prior to leaving, your few friends back in America had expressed nervousness on your behalf of moving to a country infamous of strife and war. You had reassured them with a polite smile, their ignorance all the more reason you wanted to get the hell out. Nation-state and group identity are so trivial when it can all come crashing down at the mercy of the cosmos. Sokovia is perhaps corrupt, but by whose standards?

You pick up work as a freelance translator, spending your hours in local cafes poring over documents and essays. Sokovian Cyrillic is considerably difficult for an inflected language, drawing influences from Serbian and Croatian dialects. There are few interpreters in the field who can do work as quickly and accurately as you and the pay is comfortable enough to cover your new apartment at the edge of the city.

You feel good, productive. Most of all, your work keeps one-on-one interactions to a minimum.

Three years since the attack. Three years of cycling between careful analysis and skimming the surfaces of your power, trying to find an equilibrium. The Chitauri blast had left a gemstone in the skin of your chest, a shard of blue fire in the center of your sternum. You’re thankful that you’re easily able to hide it with the right clothing.

From what you’ve observed, the gem looks to be fragmented, as if broken off from a larger piece. It acts like a chakra of sorts, your energy center for your gravitokinesis abilities.

At first, you had been extremely hesitant to even attempt to tap into that part of yourself with the attack still so fresh in your mind, the taste of smoke and smoldering metal still burning at the back of your throat. Only after you had moved to Sokovia had you begun to ease open your chakra. Even now, drawing up that power from your center is like revisiting that day.

Nightly, you see the distorted bodies of the civilians who had been within your gravitational blast radius. The main cause of your nightmares. You resent yourself for losing control, for taking innocent lives with you. You were no different from the Chitauri.  

You had come to the conclusion that these nameless individuals would be your catalyst to hone your abilities as best you can, for their sake and for the sake that an accident like that will never happen again. In the meantime, you have to keep your distance. For the safety of others.  

In your nightmares, you also see the burning silhouette of the soldier. His presence haunts you the most, the helplessness, the desperation closing your throat like your voiceless screams. Each time you watch the plane of his turned back, pleading he’ll see you. Each time you wake up gasping for breath.  

Thanks to the oversaturated media coverage of the Avengers, you had been able to put a name to a face just days after the attack. Steve Rogers, natural leader and America’s golden boy. The man who had failed to save you.

You had done your homework on Captain Rogers. Selected for Project Rebirth by Dr. Erskine in 1943. Fought alongside his team, the Howling Commandos, until 1945, the same year he had gone into the ice. For someone who claimed to be looking out for the little guy, the common man, Rogers sure did a bang-up job of letting his loved ones get hurt and leaving them to pick up the pieces. You had read about Bucky Barnes’s fall in your research, of the assassination of Dr. Erskine, of Peggy Carter continuing the SSR’s work fighting HYDRA well after Rogers disappeared.

If Rogers couldn’t even protect his childhood best friend, why is the rest of the world so eager to believe he can protect them?

After New York, news outlets and tabloids had been worked into a frenzy once the Chitauri had left Earth. The Avengers had vanished just as quickly as they had appeared, leaving behind a ruined city and shaken morale in their wake. To you, a true leader didn’t cut and run. The Avengers had the liberty of going their separate ways, of going home. You had been ripped from yours, trauma forcing you to relocate, learning to better control and understand your powers alone.

Early on, you had considered approaching S.H.I.E.L.D. for help. As much as the idea had made your stomach turn in knots, if they had formed the Avengers, a team each with their own unique abilities, maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. could help you too?

But your plan for help had been destroyed with the Triskelion, after Captain America had unceremoniously crashed into S.H.I.E.L.D’s HQ with a HYDRA helicarrier, forcing the few remaining loyalists to go underground. Your hopes had been dashed, your window of opportunity now closed and with HYDRA at the wheel, the last thing you wanted was to be made into an asset, weaponized.

You remember waiting for weeks in hopes of someone, anyone, coming to you to explain what had happened, what this thing is in your chest. New York deserved an answer. _You_ deserved an answer. But no one ever came. No mentor, no guidance.

For three years, you’ve lived the life of a recluse. For three long years you’ve been harboring animosity for Steve Rogers.

**

You’re sitting in your living room when you hear the commotion. Shuffling footsteps, the click of countless doors opening and closing. Tentatively, you step away from your pile of annotated books and go to your own front door, peering through the peephole.

The hallway of your floor is bustling with activity as residents pour out into the stairwells, carrying all sorts of luggage. Surprise grips you.

Was today some sort of national holiday? You think hard. No, you can’t remember anything of the sort. You glance out the window and see Sokovians filling the streets by the hundreds and all hurrying in the same direction.

It’s eerie. No one says a word to each other. No hum of chatter, no talking, just a mass of people leaving at once, like everyone knows something but you. Curiosity dissipates to sit as nervous energy in your throat. You grab a jacket and jog into the hallway.

_“Going somewhere, sir?”_ you joke politely in Sokovian dialect to Mr. Kostić, the older gentleman who lives next door to you as he emerges from his apartment. His eyes look intensely focused, staring right past you as if deep in thought. Instead of quipping back with a teasing remark, he clips you in the shoulder as he rushes by with a briefcase in tow.

Stunned, the momentum turns you completely around and your neighbors continue to brush past you, not breaking step as you stand in the middle of the flow of people. You raise your voice a bit when you ask again to someone else, even try to catch a young man by the elbow. No one gives you a second glance.

You try to steady your breathing as you follow them down to the streets. It’s cold tonight. Spring is just around the corner for Sokovia, the air still crisp and fresh. Residents have dressed with this in mind.

You spot a young woman in the middle of the crowd. Like you, she seems to be the only one not going anywhere. She stands against the tide of movement, an eye of a storm. It takes you a minute to get to her as you dart and weave around civilians. Her back faces you.

Your hand on her shoulder seems to startle her and she whirls around with quick movement.

She has a pretty face. Auburn hair falls in long, loose waves past her shoulders, framing clear hazel eyes. You swear you see a quick flicker of crimson in her irises before they fade to a warm green. You’re not sure if it’s because of her beauty, but you feel a tinge of warmth in your chest, a connection, when her eyes meet yours.

_“Where is everyone going?”_ you ask her, your voice a bit quieter than you would have liked, mouth drying. You wonder if she feels this link between the two of you, at least, you assume she does as she continues to gaze at you.

_“Out of the city,”_ she answers. Her voice rolls off her tongue with a touch of raspiness, a soft edge. You feel stupidly mesmerized. _“You should be too.”_ The girl says.

Then, something caresses the wall of your consciousness. It’s a gentle push, hard enough to notice. The sensation is foreign, warm, and inviting. Pleasant, even. It envelops you and you want to let it in, curious. But then your power suddenly comes alive with a single firm pulse in your chest, a keening, a warning to resist. You snap out of your daze and brush away the fog from your mind.

_“What about you?”_ you ask her again. She wears a flowy black dress paired with a tight jacket, combat boots. She looks dressed for action, something to move freely in, no risk of restricted movement. Not someone taking refuge. She doesn’t answer, only continues to stare with those captivating eyes and again you feel a push, harder this time.

Your mind’s fog lifts when you both lose your balance, knocked to the ground with a sudden rumbling underneath your feet. Cracking and moaning, the earth begins to split beneath you.

An earthquake?

The roar echoes low over the entire city. Car alarms blare, buildings crumble, streets tear like paper. The tremors are constant, powerful. Something tells you this isn’t a natural anomaly.

Then, you feel it. The pull of gravity, wind in your eyes and hair, a weightlessness in your stomach as if you’re climbing and climbing up the top of a roller coaster like you often did as a child.

You’re rising. And all of Sokovia with it.

A voice then resonates from all around you, like it’s anywhere and everywhere all at once. Raw, cold.

_“Do you see the beauty of it? The inevitability? You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor. My swift and terrible sword and the Earth will crack with the weight of your failure.”_

Your hearing cuts out with loud ringing. Your bones feel like jelly and you lay there in the dust and dirt.

Of course this is of their doing. You haven’t heard that name in years, stopped keeping tabs as soon as S.H.I.E.L.D went dark. Tears of frustration and anger sting behind your eyes. If the Avengers are here, then something else is too. Something bad.

Creatures of metal and machine burst forth from the broken earth like reanimated corpses, others touching down from the sky growing ever larger up above, the sky of your second home. The young woman from before helps you to your feet, one protective hand coming to duck your head down as the two of you run through rubble, ruin.

The androids are close, close enough to feel the heat of their plasma cannons. You shiver. A stray android zips dangerously near and the girl drops her grip on you to weave her hands in an arc in front of her.

Red energy materializes from her fingertips, conjuring an offensive forcefield that strikes it with enough force to send sparks as it explodes into a burst of fire and solder. You suddenly feel the energy of your power emerge just out of reach, a gentle _tug_ deep within the gemstone in your chest, blooming and cobalt, eager to surge at your slightest command. Surprised, you ease it back down to its standard low hum in the root of your center.

Your abilities have never attempted to independently manifest before.

You then realize she’s like _you._ Your own powers have granted you some energy manipulation and barrier generating, but not to her extent, wisps of ruby and scarlet pulsing all around you, shielding, protecting you. You’ve never seen anyone else with superhuman _powers_ like yourself, independent from a lightning-wielding hammer, gamma radiation, a super soldier serum.

As the dust settles, the girl guides you to the city square, or rather, what’s left of it.

“Go!” She exclaims to you in English and sends you off with a firm push. You catch yourself, stumbling. When you turn, she’s gone. A thousand thoughts race through your mind. One floats to the surface, brushing past the questions of her power origins, if there are more people out there like you.

You want to know her name, at least, to thank her.

Taking a deep breath, you feel a gradual trickle as the power of the cosmos start to pool in your clenched fists, bold and blue. You shape a gravitational field large enough to shield the city square, to repel any incoming attacks. You feel it leave the radius of your center, past your own being and stretch outward slowly. But just as you begin to push out farther, harder, an android slams into your field. It startles you, enough for your control to waver for a split second. Another collides, then another. Frightened screams sound from behind you and you grit your teeth in concentration, resisting as hard as you can to keep these civilians safe. Dust and smoke swirl around you. You taste it on your tongue. Your eyes flash.

You suddenly stand in the ruins of New York. Chitauri snarl and roar and you hear a woman begging for her life, the hum of an alien weapon trained on you…

You shut your mind at the memory, but it’s too late. Your gravity field flickers out and the androids rush towards you. You panic. As a last resort, you reach out your ability as fast as you can, the air around you rippling indigo as you take hold of their gravitons, their anchors of personal mass, and smash the androids into the earth with as much force as you can muster.

Your body is zapped of all strength, but adrenaline moves you to direct the group of Sokovians away from the plaza. You all take shelter inside a shop and wait with bated breath. It seems the androids are attacking in waves, the streets outside quiet save for the rush of wind as Sokovia continues to rise hundreds of miles into the air.

You’d managed to keep everyone safe, but your concentration had slipped. The girl who rescued you had performed tremendously under pressure and her actions had inspired a spark of courage within you, to at least _try._ You, however, had faltered. Your fear and lack of confidence had instead triggered your deepest trauma.

You need to stop doubting yourself, you realize. You can’t keep doing this. If she can do it, so can you. You’re capable. You’re strong.

There’s a sudden clamor to the windows as you see something rising above the clouds. Murmurs of excited whispering that the _Americans,_ that help has arrived. You spot the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia on the lifeboats now loading civilians, transporting them to the infamous Helicarrier No. 64. Your pulse hammers in your throat, from relief or dread you can’t tell.


	3. Mercury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the slight wait on this chapter! Wanda and Steve finally intervene...let's go!

Once secured into the helicarrier transporter, you watch Sokovia plumet, an entire city descending with enough force to kill millions below. Then, a flash and your second home crumbles and disintegrates into the Black Sea, raining rock.

The transporters had then started to disperse refugees across Eastern Europe. Most Sokovians had familial ties or acquaintances elsewhere and you remember the number of occupants in your lifeboat slowly dwindling with each stop. Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, along with other countries. The landscapes blur together, the flight times short but enough to make you stir-crazy. 

You remember the look of surprise the onboard S.H.I.E.L.D agents had given you upon learning you’re an American citizen, flashing your passport. There had been a tasteless joke about how this would have been a horrible vacation, to which you had given a tight smile. Displaced and with only an expired Sokovian work-visa to your name, it’s decided for you that you would be returning to the States. 

You touch down in Washington, D.C. with nothing more than the clothes on your back and a blank check from the Department of State, courtesy of Secretary Ross. And just like that, with money as your only compensation, you’re expected to start your life over again. 

**

You try and throw yourself back into work despite your now unlimited funds. You’ve had a strong work ethic all your life and no amount of money was going to change that. The routine of returning to your freelance translating is almost comforting. 

It worked at first, kept your mind and body occupied. 

But with Sokovia now destroyed and thousands of civilians and scholars alike scattered across the European continent, the demand for the Sokovian language had all but disappeared with its people. 

The world had managed to take another thing from you.

You drop your pad of paper, swipe all the books and notes off of your desk in a burst of rage. You’ve had _enough_. Enough of your burdening abilities, of heroes and governments controlling your life, forcing you to run away. You feel helpless, weak. You’re the very embodiment of collateral damage, shell-shocked, hoped to be kept quiet by Ross’s bottomless wallet. You can’t remember the last time you’ve even had real friends, before New York forced you to shelter yourself, before Sokovia destroyed the few, feeble relationships you had formed with locals. 

Your vision swims. You crave companionship, guidance. Someone to protect and comfort you. You’ve been alone for so long, you’ve started to forget what it feels like to be cared for, to hear that everything is going to be alright. 

The alarm system chirps once, a warning that strange movement has been detected within your apartment. You fight a scoff as your anger simmers, draw your gravity field back to your center as you survey the mess you’ve now made of your study. Your abilities had accidentally triggered the system, warping the parameters.

Your new place is state-of-the-art, modern, sleek. Tony Stark would have a complete field day with all the tech it has, rivaling the old Avengers Tower. But it’s not home to you.

With a quick azure flash of your eyes and a pulse of energy, the alarm panel shatters and goes dead.

**

You try everything you can to find more information on the Sokovian girl who saved your life. She’s your asteroid, your central axis keeping you anchored, sane in this whole mess. You think about her whenever you watch the hazy blue light dance idly across your fingertips, whenever you find your mind drifting before sleep. Your subconscious recalls the soft details of her shimmering eyes and hair, her voice. You pray she survived. 

You frequent libraries and public record offices, scour archives and print. You want, no, _need_ to find her. You remember the pull in your chest when she had used her telekinesis to shield you, crimson energy she had manipulated so effectively. More importantly, you remember the feeling that you two were somehow connected. 

You’re desperate to find her, your link. Maybe on top of everything else, she could finally explain to you what this gemstone is, how to better understand your powers. If anyone out there has that kind of information, you know that she has to be the one.

Eventually, you find something. You’re looking through old Sokovian databases when your eyes stop on a photograph of a protest. A young man with silver hair and a young woman stand at the forefront of an angry crowd, jeering at police. You see signs in Cyrillic reading, _“No justice, no peace”_ and _“Get out of Sokovia”_. You scan the rest of the newspaper article to find the protest to be against the American occupation. Tony Stark, the Avengers.

Your pulse quickens. 

You find a name. Wanda Maximoff, one of the organizers. She looks a few years younger in the photograph, but it has to be her. She has the same intense eyes, the same slender figure. 

Your heart blooms, tracing the name with your finger, tasting it on your tongue. It feels incredible to finally have something to match to a face.

The remainder of the article doesn’t disclose anything else. It’s not much, but it’s enough. You feel the ghost of a smile tug at the corners of your lips. Her protests against the Avengers gives you a tinge of hope, that perhaps her motivations even align with yours. 

You know you’re getting ahead of yourself, but you can’t help it.

Wanda, a girl with powers mirroring yours, born and raised in a war-stricken country where Tony Stark traded profit over peace. For the first time, you don’t feel alone. 

She is like you, more than you could have ever imagined. 

**

You decide to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. for more intel on Wanda. After HYDRA’s exposure within the government and loyal agents forced into hiding, several research bases now stood abandoned. Now is your best window to slip in undetected, your final chance. 

That’s how you find yourself outside a research base in D.C. at the dead of night. Your fist glows an electric blue as you bend the gravity around your hands, magnetizing them. As you hover your palm over the control panel, you manually override the power circuit locking the door and it eases open with a low groan. 

The backup generator still seems to be up and running, the tunnel you step into dimly lit. You keep your energy concentrated in your hands, illuminating your path with blue light as you make your way into the main sector of the base.

It’s eerie seeing so many empty desks and chairs, long shadows creeping from where your power throws light against them. Papers and case files are strewn everywhere. You can only imagine the chaos that had ensued during the coup. 

You extinguish your power as you start to rifle through files and boot up a computer. You don’t have clearance to access a majority of the S.H.I.E.L.D. database (which you infer to be a sign that perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. is managing to gather its bearings), but a few more magnetized pulls at the harddrive and you have an index of Sokovian people of interest. 

The list is short. You’re surprised to see another individual sharing Wanda’s surname, _Pietro Maximoff._ You click on his name. Bold, red letters glare the top headline.

_STATUS: DECEASED_

Pulse racing, you quickly scan Wanda’s file.

_STATUS: ALIVE_

Relief floods through you. Releasing a deep breath, you read over their reports.

“... _When the twins reached adulthood, Sokovia had become a war zone with foreign forces invading frequently. Wanda and her brother took part in various riots to drive them out of their streets. The Maximoffs were then approached by List, a scientist of HYDRA, who offered them powers and abilities in exchange for compliance. Along with other volunteers from the town, Wanda and Pietro underwent a series of experiments supervised by Doctor List and Wolfgang von Strucker, where they were exposed to energy from the Scepter (see Reference [1]) . This had fatal effects on all other volunteers, however, the twins survived and experienced exceedingly different effects. Pietro achieved superhuman speed, and Wanda attained a number of mental powers such as telekinesis, hypnosis, and energy projection. Wanda’s full potential is currently under study.”_

A cold sweat breaks over the back of your neck. _HYDRA? No, no_ that had to be a mistake. There’s no way a girl like Wanda would willingly subject herself to such an organization. That would make her a threat, an enemy of the state. Your mind reels. But she saved you, hadn’t she? What did that make her? 

Your stomach drops through the floor. You feel sick. Even so, if she had willingly given herself over for experimentation, she too is hiding behind HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D., just another government agency grappling for power, a way to deflect blame.

That made her a guinea pig, that she had had a _choice_ in receiving her abilities from those experiments. Your chest feels too tight, your insides twist in denial. The axis in you shifts violently. 

A lab rat with the privilege of free will. That alone makes her nothing like you. That alone makes her no different than Rogers.

The room spins, or maybe it truly is. You wouldn’t be surprised if you had unconsciously triggered your powers to manipulate the gravitons around you. You want to scream, cry. Wanda isn’t supposed to be one of them. She’s supposed to be like you, _yours._  

The sound of voices and heavy footsteps yank you back to the present and you quickly kill the computer. Panic fuses with your cocktail of raging emotions and your abilities surge alongside your adrenaline spike. Cobalt glitters over the surface of your skin.

Just then, a mercenary with light tactical gear bursts through the door closest to you, brandishing a pistol. He’s flanked by two more men, one of which carries a silver briefcase. He sweeps his weapon over the room and visually hesitates when he sees you. You must look absolutely aberrant with your body lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree, yet, his appearance frightens you more.   

His entire body is twisted with fresh burns. The left side of his face is completely scarred over from where the skin has tried to heal itself, leaving him looking horrifyingly grotesque. He smiles at you, his lips tightening menacingly over his teeth, taking pleasure in your reaction.

“Looks like Cap sent us a welcome wagon,” he says to his men. His voice is like sandpaper, chilling, as if his vocal chords have been fried like the rest of him. 

You suddenly have a very bad feeling that this mercenary is expecting someone else. 

He raises his pistol, but you’re faster. With a sharp tug of your hand, the pistol crumples in on itself and falls from his grip with a whine of metal. He curses, flinching, and you disarm the others for good measure. He rubs his wrist and kicks his now useless gun across the floor. He gives you a once over, chuckling darkly. 

“You seem like his style, too. Heard he has a type for witchy little things.” He hums.

Your nerves are practically vibrating, breath coming hard and fast. This man had just pointed a gun at you without warning. What on earth is he going on about?

There’s a commotion as the two lackeys are suddenly subdued by a woman with a sleek catsuit and hair the color of fire. She grapples them to the floor with skilled agility, using her momentum to land lightly back on her feet.

Your panic ripples tenfold. You’d anticipated tonight to be quiet and covert and here you are in the belly of a compromised S.H.I.E.L.D. research base with two trained operatives.

She locks eyes with you and your gaze flickers to the familiar red insignia on the belt of her suit. _Black Widow._

Oh, Christ. This mercenary thinks you’re an Avenger. 

They’re here. Tonight of all nights.

Her attention cuts back to the mercenary in a split-second, her expression unreadable. In the same fluid motion, she quickly radios in on a comm on the inside of her wrist. 

“I’ve got company.” She details and throws herself at her last standing opponent. She’s sharp, matching the mercenary’s brute strength with quick, well-placed jabs, nimble and lethal all the same. He’s starting to stagger, his blocks becoming sluggish and sloppy as she wears him into exhaustion. 

An all too familiar shield connects with the mercenary’s back and he pitches to the side in a roll, reaching for the case. You can hear the mercenary’s labored breathing as he staggers to his feet, close-cropped hair falling over his eyes. 

Steve Rogers then enters back into your life like a crashing comet. All vigor and heat, his chest rising and falling steadily from exertion, his very presence commanding. Gone is the rosy, boyish costume of New York, now replaced with a modified utilitarian uniform of dark blues and leather. Cold, militant. His steely eyes focus on the man before him. Then, he looks to you.

Your gemstone keens, breath cinching in your lungs. For a moment, you think it to be the emotional response of finally coming face-to-face with the man haunting your nightmares, the one responsible for this stone in your chest in the first place. But it all becomes clear when another figure floats into the main atrium.    

Her hair flows behind her like she’s suspended in water. She wears a corset of red and black, a crimson jacket. Her looks have matured, the youthful curve of her face and body now sharp with feminine beauty. You know her instantly. Your Wanda. 

Your cheeks flush with heat before it dissipates through the rest of your trembling frame. You’re so stunned that your eyes well with tears. Hurt and anger roil inside you, a burning furnace. Your axis melts into mercury. 

Wanda is a traitor, a coward. Her being in the Captain’s company speaks louder than her words ever could, where her loyalty truly lies. When she sees you, she takes a timid step forward and the scarlet coiling through her fingers vanishes, recognition flooding her features. You follow her with your own step backward. Steve turns his head a fraction in Wanda’s direction, puzzled.

For a tense moment, nobody moves. 

No one knows your allegiance, you realize. Despite everything, you fight a small smile. For the first time in years, you feel truly powerful, finally taking back a part of yourself that was stolen all those years ago. You command a room of four adept and highly skilled government envoys, three Avengers at your will. All waiting for your move. 

They want a fight? You’ll give them one. You have a point to prove.

The case flies into your hands with a hard magnetized pull and you toss it to the mercenary. He catches it, eyes wide. You answer him wordlessly by creating a barrier with an audible crackle of blue in front of the two of you, shielding his exit as his lackeys regain their footing. You glare in the mercenary’s direction. A silent urge to _go_. His gaze quickly flits between you and Rogers just as his shield rebounds harmlessly off your barrier and clatters to the floor. He grins wickedly, understanding perfectly.

You don’t belong to him. 

The mercenary and his lackeys tear out the door from which they came and you dissipate your barrier. Romanoff vaults past you with a curse, whoever that mercenary is and whatever’s in that case now her top priority. She doesn’t miss the chance to give you a hefty roundhouse kick on her way out, though. You grunt in pain, too slow to offset before she’s gone. 

“Company intervened and Rumlow’s on the move. Sam, be Nat’s eyes.” Rogers comms to a third party. Wanda looks startled, confused. Perhaps at seeing you again, perhaps at witnessing your powers. You don’t care. 

Everything you’ve been harboring for the past three years bubbles over your threshold. You’re a supernova, a dying star glowing at the brink of genesis, drawing power from all that’s happened in the last stages of your life, converging and collapsing all your pain into fuel. 

The stone. Rogers. New York. Sokovia. Now, Wanda’s alliance with the man you detest most. Energy to you all the same. The pull in your chest is strong, stronger than you’ve ever felt and you let it wash over you as your fists ignite in indigo. The hair on the back of your neck stands on end, eyes flashing. You have no need to hold back now. There are no civilians in your radius, no danger of hurting anyone here. Only Steve and Wanda before you. 

You cut loose. 

With Steve unarmed, you get in tight to his proximity, close enough to feel the heat of his flaring anger. The air hums as you cloak your body with a field, magnifying the gravitons surrounding you. Newfound strength courses heavy in your limbs, the weight of the cosmos amplifying your physical stamina, aided by pressure and gravity. Your own equivalent of a super soldier serum.  

You relish Steve’s shock when you catch his fist. You wonder how long its been since he’s met his match, since he’s felt the full force behind a punch. 

A long time, you conclude, as you connect with his jaw and send his head snapping backwards. Power whirrs across your knuckles. You land another solid punch before he counters with a knee to your stomach, two quick hits to your ribs. Your field absorbs the blows, but pain still shudders through you. 

You quickly realize your mistake as Rogers follows through with an uppercut and a back kick that throws you to the ground. You may now be just as strong as him, but you’re unfamiliar with combat, untrained.

He’s on you almost in an instant, not giving you a chance to recover. Overbearing, suffocatingly close. The blue of his eyes cuts into you more than your stone ever has. You come apart, terror striking you and you repel him off with a gravity field that sends him into the far wall. 

You extend your hand, sending your ability outward and watch as blue spirals around him. You can feel the frantic pounding of his pulse, the thin, fragile skin of his windpipe...

Crimson zaps at your azure. Steve gasps for breath as your power releases him.

Wanda turns on you, radiating. Magenta light flares and sparks all around you as the two of you throw the brunt of your abilities at each other, fire and ice. 

She’s powerful, sending wave after wave of scarlet energy in your direction and you’re barely able to deflect her attacks. Fatigue leeches at your core. Then, a hard push against the wall of your consciousness, the same one you remember feeling in Sokovia. It forces its way into your mind and to your horror, you find your body disobeying you. 

You feel smothered, unable to call upon your abilities. Your gemstone glows a rich wine and you fall to your knees, convulsing. Wanda weaves her hands and tendrils of energy snake around your wrists. You hiss at the burning sensation as she tightens your makeshift manacles, the hold on your stone.  

“Get her on the jet.” Steve huffs. 

You want to disappear, melt through the very cracks of the earth. Liquid mercury. 


	4. Tempest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay! I was focusing my creative energy on a writing challenge on tumblr that wrapped up earlier this month. Enough of my excuses, let's jump back in!

Wanda walks you to the quinjet with Steve leading the way, not letting up her choking influence over your abilities. You obey, chest humming crimson and heat, yet your gait remaining uneven as you try and resist. Wanda just pushes you harder. 

Steve’s shoulders are rigid, cowl discarded, shield sheathed against the harness of his back. Even from this distance, you can sense the silent anger rolling off of him in waves. Your stomach twists in unease, pulse hammering, marching to what feels like imprisonment as the quinjet yawns open.

Natasha waits with her hands clasped cooly behind her back, expression eerily neutral. A bruise dapples the skin of her cheek, fresh and angry and red. She looks to Steve, then glances to you. You quickly avert your eyes.

Standing beside her is a man in a flight suit. Sam, you think, the other one on comms. Strong arms crossed over his broad chest, his expression stormy and hard. He has his own fair share of marks and bruises, skin glistening in a fine sheen of sweat. He watches you carefully, sizing you up. You fight the lump in your throat. 

Four Avengers surround you, hurt and exhausted and hellfire burning within all. You don’t like these odds anymore.

“I want wheels up in five.” Steve growls. Without missing a beat, Sam and Natasha disperse as Steve leads you into a cargo bay, a seal of a room with cases, supplies, and harsh fluorescent lights. The door hisses shut behind the three of you and you’re pushed into a sitting position atop a metal trunk.

“You wanna tell me what that was back there?” His voice is a quiet rumble, rolling thunder. 

You never thought of how intimidating Rogers could be, standing before you like storm and tempest, gripping his utility belt tightly between gloved hands. Rogers has always seemed to you like a smiling poster boy, part of the reason why you despised him so much; able to go about his daily life blissfully oblivious, without a care in the world for what had happened to you or to the ones he loved.

Then again, you’ve never been shut into an airtight chamber with him before.

“If you know what’s good for you, get me off this plane.” You murmur back just as softly. The walls loom too close, the lights too bright, and Steve and Wanda are making your very skin crawl. You’d be more than happy to crush them both inside this tin can. 

“Big talk for a little one like you.” Says Steve. You hate his tone, how he’s looking down at you through his lashes. 

Despite his hulking demeanor, you know Steve is far from stupid. Wickedly intelligent, in fact. A master strategist, tactician. Before Wanda intervened, you had made a two hundred twenty pound super soldier look like a ragdoll. And Steve knows you’re more than capable of doing it again. Your physical positioning below him, his own body language and snide remark, you understand that this is all a strategic ploy to get you to talk.

But you don’t need words. You’ll get yourself out of this mess, just like you always have. 

If Wanda is heat, you are cold, crushing and bitter. You grit your teeth and _push_ as fast as you can outward, a ripple of cyan crackling from your center. And then you feel it.

Wanda shuts you down like she’s flicking off a light switch. All your pressure goes straight to your head and chest, your mind a dizzying swirl, vision spotting as if you’ve held your breath too long and hard. 

Except you can’t breathe. Not comfortably, anyway. Your lungs tighten as Wanda’s light coils around you.

“You were saying?” he prompts. You scoff, winded, dazed, try to blink away dancing stars. “Tell me what you know about Brock Rumlow.” 

“Nothing,” you wheeze. “I don’t even know who that is.” 

Steve’s eyes, hard as steel, cut to Wanda in a silent urge for something you can already feel coming. Heat turns to fire as you’re constricted tighter, lungs singing. 

“ _That_ mercenary got away with a S.H.I.E.L.D. weapon, one he intends to sell for a very high price,” he presses, voice lacing with impatience, anger. “Are there more of you?” 

You grunt, powerless and your head lolls back. “I’ve never seen him before tonight.” You hiss in a broken whisper.

For a terrifying moment, you think Steve is going to let you black out, that he doesn’t believe you. Then, finally, he gives a slight nod and Wanda releases her hold. You slump forward with a rattling cough, feel the prickle of her energy still encircled around your wrists.

Whoever this Rumlow is, you’ve definitely complicated things assisting in his getaway. 

As you catch your breath, the collar of your jacket falls open. Wanda stiffens. Steve’s eyes instinctively trace the glowing shard in the dip of your chest and you feel exposed, vulnerable. You see a flicker of astonishment, as if he’s seen something like it somewhere before.

“Where did you get that?” He asks and you see the brewing churn of hurricane within him.

It’s silent. You hear a hum, feel it through the floor. Sam must be lifting the quinjet into the air. The cargo bay seems to close in tighter around you, the realization kicking in that you are now captive to the one person you never wanted to see manifested outside of your nightmares.

You don’t want to do this now. Not now, not ever. But chance has a funny way of making your decisions for you.

“Before or after Sokovia?” Wanda adds. It’s the first time you’ve heard her voice in years. Dreamlike, crushed velvet and ebony. You find her gaze, see Steve look to her as well. Your eyes well up.

_Why you too?_ You want to scream at her. W _hy HYDRA? Why anyone? Why him?_

“Before. In New York.” You bite out. 

Turmoil swims in the hazel of her eyes, as if recalling that first moment she met you. You wonder if she thinks you’re some sort of imposter, a coward for hiding your powers during the attack. You wonder if she regrets saving you. 

You want to take her face in your hands, explain everything without Steve’s imposing presence, your very reason for being in Sokovia. But like everything else in your life, you compartmentalize away hopes and empty promises and lash out, repel like the lone moon you’ve been forced to become. 

You turn to Steve, draw up a hint of your power, just enough to throw blue energy in your irises as you fight the smothering choke of Wanda’s ability.

“You don’t remember, do you?” 

You feel a hard pull, a whine as Wanda subdues you for a second time. The resistance is enough to make your stomach coil into knots and sweat to gloss the skin of your neck, but you manage to hold onto a small piece of your ability as your eyes simmer with starfire.

“You didn’t save me, captain,” your voice is strong, steadfast despite the familiar roil of strife you feel within you. “You didn’t save me, or New York, or Sokovia, and I’m living proof of your failure.”

Steve is quiet, brows furrowed, face shadowed in aquamarine as your stone glows brighter with your rage. He knows Wanda has you safely tethered. All bark and no bite, a dog on a leash.

You find Wanda next. “And _you_ ,” you start, resolve crumbling as you look Wanda Maximoff square in the face for the second time since she saved your life. “Switching and playing both sides to whichever is most convenient. HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D., now you’re fighting on the same team as Stark?” Tears drip onto your collarbones, streaking down your cheeks like luminescence. “Pietro got what he deserved.”

Your world explodes with pain and red. You’re thrown backwards into a wall of cases as Wanda pins you with otherworldly ferocity. She shines like the sun, all-powerful, capable of snuffing you out without batting an eyelash. Her own eyes glitter with tears, flaring with energy.

“My brother had more courage than you could ever hope to have.” 

Steve pulls her off with a tentative hand at her waist. She lets him gather her to him as she composes herself, refusing to look away before he gently quells her with a breath of her name. Wanda turns on her heel and heads for the one exit in the cargo bay. Steve follows suit.

“Enjoy First Class.” He says and kills the lights. You hear the seal of the door open, then close and you lay there in darkness among toppled trunks. 

**

The Avengers facility is a glittering citadel of glass and limestone. Wanda shuts you into a simple bedroom in the far wing and you feel her overwhelming command over your stone even after she clicks the lock and hear her turn down the hallway. From time to time, you sense her tapping into you, chest drawing tight, monitoring. You’re too numb to even try and break free.

You make use of the attached bathroom and shower off sweat and tears. You fall into the single bed, sleep for hours on end. When you wake, a meal waits for you atop the desk. You eat in silence, too hungry to be stubborn at the prospect of an Avenger bringing you dinner. 

You wonder why they’ve bothered to keep you. 

**

After three days of being confined in your room, you’re pulled from dead sleep and you wake up with a gasp, as if surfacing from cold water. Dizzy, disorientated, confused with dusk still painting your window.

Wanda stands in your doorway. “You weren’t waking up even after I turned the lights on,” she says with crossed arms, the afterglow of crimson still curling from her hands. “Steve wants to see you.”

**

You follow her to a large compound, find Natasha, Sam, and Steve all suited up and waiting. You’re horrified when Steve tells you you’re going to be trained. 

The team has been monitoring HYDRA, mercenaries, organizations across the globe ever since your capture. Not a single one has broken patterns to reflect that an asset is missing. You hate the inclination. 

If you were valuable enough, someone would have come by now. 

You had already told Steve you didn’t work for Rumlow, had no regard that he was of HYDRA. And just like that you’re supposed to fight for _them_? Be on the same side because no one else has claimed you?

A shiver runs through you, frozen as Wanda joins them to stand across from you. She looks apprehensive, vexed.

_No,_ your mind screams. You don’t want to fight, you don’t want to be weaponized.

“You still have a choice,” Steve murmurs in that low, dangerous tone that reminds you of still, calm waves before a storm. “You can stay and we can help you. Or, you can go home, wherever that is for you.” 

You almost snort. A choice? Wanda had just collected you from a locked bedroom.

“ _She has no home,”_ Wanda speaks in Cyrillic. Speaks directly to you. _“This coward has nowhere else to go.”_

_“We are alike in that way,”_ you fire back. _“Is that why you fight for Stark?”_

You feel the spike in the air as she bristles. Like sunburst, lightning about to strike. _“I fight for myself and for my friends.”_

_Liar_ , you scream again. And then there’s another push against your mind that signals your thoughts are no longer your own.

It’s stupid. Pain, arrogance, and desperation drive you to throw a blazing, gravity aided punch. Wanda deflects easily even as you turn on her with waves of azure, dissipating harmlessly into plum and violet. You’re furious.

So, when you can’t hit Wanda, you go for Steve, Sam, Natasha. 

Repel Steve with enough force to wind him, crush Sam’s flight suit, land a solid heavy hit to Natasha’s stomach. It’s comical just how quickly Natasha then levels you to the ground, blinded by rage and Wanda overpowering your stone.

_“Let us help you.”_ Natasha hisses in Cyrillic, quiet enough for only you to hear. You’re stunned, feel tears well in your eyes. You’ve cried enough tears to fill an ocean, an ocean tinted by scarlet, scorching sun. Pulled by the gravity of the moon and cosmos.

Unbearable pressure builds in your shoulderblades as she locks your arms behind your back, building and building until you’re afraid you’ll break.

“Fine,” you whimper through clenched teeth. You catch Steve’s gaze as he gets back to his feet, see Wanda over Natasha’s shoulder as the familiar pull in your chest subsides. “I’ll stay.”

_A choice,_ your mind echoes Steve’s words. Chance has a funny way of making your decisions for you.

**

Every morning in those quiet hours where night and day, sun and moon share mutual twilight, Wanda pulls you from sleep. You’re given a kevlar training suit, a few minutes to change before she walks you to the training compound. 

Every morning, you’re thrown into a mock battle with Sam, Natasha, Wanda, and Steve all using the brunt of their abilities to wear you down, test the very limits of your power. 

It’s brutal. Natasha and Steve utilize your cosmic strength in ruthless hand-to-hand combat, leaving your core feeling like the day your stone crashed into your chest. Where you’re not drained physically, Wanda and Sam make up for with grueling mental applications of your gravitokinesis, energy manipulation, fight patterns. Together, they break your stubbornness, break through your boundaries again and again. 

**

On Steve’s orders, Wanda oversees your gravitokinesis training, an addition to your daily drills. The two of you together are like gunpowder and crackling flame and her lessons are sharp, rigid. 

The ruins of New York burn bright in your mind. The memory is the strongest its been in a long time, harder and harder to ignore, easier to lose control. You suspect your reunion with Steve has triggered something deep within your subconscious. 

After your fourth attempt at parrying Wanda’s attacks with a gravity field that fizzles out, the brunt of her energy hitting you square in the chest, she advances towards you and you feel her push into your psyche.

“Get _out!_ ” You snarl, eyes and hair blazing, defenseless.  

_“Stop being selfish. This isn’t about_ you _anymore,”_ you hear her voice within yourself, resounding and vibrating around your mind all at once, yet clear as crystal as if speaking to you plainly. _“You must learn your weaknesses to protect others from them.”_

She slips into your memories like blood in water, red smoke. A bloom you feel expanding through synapses and nerve endings as she peruses your mind like a visual map. 

Then, you stand in smoldering Manhattan. Flashes of the city on fire, alien warships blotting out the sky like locusts. The screams of civilians, commuters, tourists. The stone hits you and you see the unmistakable streak of a blue costume, a vibranium shield. She feels your desperation, your pleading anger.

_“You can’t keep blaming others.”_

 “You think I don’t know that?” You flare. But, you don’t know because you still don’t believe it yourself. 

Your irises glow red, breath coming heavy. Wanda is not here, watching from the safety of your vision. It’s an illusion, it’s not real. But it might as well be.

_“Sometimes terrible things happen so we can change our futures.”_

You feel the aftershock of your cosmic burst, look away in instinct when you see the crumple of bodies upon your impact.

“I don’t want to see this. Make it stop.” Your voice breaks. But you’re forced to turn back, your body disobeying, compelled to see.

_“You don’t believe me, do you?”_

You can’t look away. Like a horrible car crash, grotesque curiosity that’s not your own. 

_“I will show you.”_

Your surroundings dissipate and shift. You’re now in Sokovia. You’d recognize the landscape anywhere, the familiar crisp taste of mountain air on your tongue. The day of the attack. 

But you are not in your own mind. You are in Wanda’s. 

You stand alone in the skeleton of a church. You ward off sentinels left and right, guarding some sort of machine. The air goes still. 

You feel every single one of Pietro’s bullets shred through you, feel death, soul-crushing and vitriolic, your body compressing with heat, fire, energy. A vortex of agony, a severed blood link. Your other half. You can’t breathe.

It’s eerily familiar when you buckle to your knees in a silent scream, exploding with magma and grief and rage that incinerates everything within your radius. A mirror image, a scarlet shadow. 

_“Everyone is afraid of something. Don’t let it control you.”_

When you resurface, the two of you glow moonlight and eclipse. There’s a wordless, mutual understanding that flows between the two of you. You cling to it, the first real connection you’ve felt in years.

**

Your mind and body harden into muscle, one single system. With Wanda’s guidance, your powers no longer function as mere offense, but manifest as an extension of yourself. New York is gone from your mind’s eye. You’re able to match her strength when Steve stands in on your assessment as the training compound ignites into luminent showers of fuchsia and heliotrope.  

He looks impressed, pleased. The warm satisfaction blooming in your chest feels distasteful, a betrayal of everything you’ve suppressed as Steve Rogers studies your progress, your capacity to benefit his team. 

The recognizable trickle of fear distills into your pulse. The fear of being weaponized, stripped away into a soldier you were never meant to be.

Then, your anxiety evaporates like clearing fog and you know Wanda has entered your mind. For the first time, you’re thankful for her ability despite the lack of privacy it gives you, how you can never let your guard down around her. Wanda manipulates your conscience to keep you focused. Wanda manipulates your fears even if they might be true.

_You must learn your weaknesses to protect others from them._

You are bettering yourself. You trust her judgement over your own. 

**

Steve gives you a new room in the same wing as the team. It’s daunting to suddenly have four other enhanced and adept individuals right outside your doorstep, Avengers nonetheless. It’s a strange sort of limbo; they’re still a bit unsure of how to read you and you’re definitely not one of them, wary, hesitant. But you admit that things are a welcome change from your previous life of solitude, now with your newfound control over your abilities. You exchange smalltalk when you pass in the halls, when you see your team bright and early every morning for training. You feel a hint of that craving you’ve been yearning for years. Companionship. 

Yet, you’re uncertain. After all, when have you ever been able to keep a home?


	5. Eclipse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I've updated the warning to be explicit from here on out now that smut will be in future chapters. I hope more readers can find it this way :') 
> 
> Wanda deserves more love!! I hope you enjoy!!

Your nightmares return. New York, although no longer a restraint on your abilities, resurfaces with Wanda’s vision training. Phantoms of Chitauri, the smell of smoke curling through rubble. You jerk awake one night choking on screams, your gemstone humming. 

Sam and Steve, soldiers and light sleepers that they are, appear in your doorway in a minute flat. You see Wanda shadowed behind them.

“You okay?” Sam asks. He sounds so alert despite the ungodly hour. Embarrassment and guilt wash over you as Steve watches you carefully. You feel like a freak. You want to repel them away, send out a gravity field to keep your solitude.

“Bad dream.” You rasp, catching your breath. The kind that make you terrified to close your eyes again, you want to add.  _ Because of Steve. _

The two of them trade glances, a hum of recognition. 

“Give me five minutes with her.” Wanda says and sidles past them into your bedroom. Their eyes follow her, cognizant, as if already understanding her strategy. 

“Call us if you need anything, Wanda.” Steve murmurs. They bid you goodnight and then she stands silhouetted before you in lush darkness. 

You hear movement, feel the bed dip as she settles next to you. Your pulse pounds embarrassingly quick. You try and find words, a possible thread of a question after Wanda has volunteered to help you in a manner you’ve yet to find out. Midnight blankets the two of you, sun and moon dressed for sleep in silk pajama tops and cotton shorts. Your own lips and tongue fumble, speechless.

“Everything is so  _ loud _ . Does your mind ever shut off?” Wanda scrunches her face in annoyance. It’s oddly childlike and eases some of the tension wound tight in your bones.

You shake your head, swipe at your eyes again. “Not really. Not at night.” It sounds weak, broken. 

Wisps of flushed light flicker from her fingertips, irses glowing softly. Scarlet shadows bend and twist around you. 

“Well, hopefully both of us can get some sleep.”

Another burning pang of guilt gnaws at your stomach. Wanda must be hearing your nightmares the loudest of everyone, a direct link into your subconscious. 

Before you can push an apology into your mind, push her out, a warm, familiar presence blooms in the back of your consciousness. Through half-lidded eyes, you see Wanda pulling at your mind like red thread, plucking away fibers of nightmares, ribbons of dreams. The sensation differs from your training sessions. You feel your muscles go lax, eyelids drooping. It’s euphoric, calming, numbing. Intimate. 

_ Lie back, _ you hear.  _ You are safe. _

Your body obeys. 

You stand in empty, smoke filled streets. Silence fills your ears. Through the haze, you see Steve’s turned back, feel the familiar choke of suffocation even in sleep. You try and call out, move, but you’re rooted to the spot.  

_ Let him go. _

It’s all too familiar as you watch Steve disappear into the smoke. Then, the entire scene dissipates. You float in peaceful oblivion. Silence, warmth, a hum in your chest. 

But where is she? Where is your guiding light?

“Wanda.” You gasp.

_ I’m here. _

You feel her with mind and body, oblivion now glowing with gold and crimson, a gentle hand on your shoulder. You are protected.

And then she smiles. Soft, close-lipped, observing. She senses your trust, your faith in her. You watch her drowsily. Enchanting, bewitching in the muted light. 

_ Stay,  _ you push.

Sweet, repairing sleep takes you. 

**

There is a shift between you and Wanda. Your own energy manipulation projects faster, stronger with each training session. You learn and grow from one another, like yin and yang, shadow and light. You’ve let her into your mind and she into her own, shown each other your most vulnerable moments. You feel your axis of quicksilver begin to solidify once more, cool from the heat of your selfish anger, anchored. 

She sleeps in your bedroom at night, curled up against your pillows as she watches over your dreams. She no longer needs to use her abilities. Wanda is now your physical comfort, her very presence enough to put your mind at ease as you fall into suspended consciousness.

You uncrush Sam’s flight suit. It’s a difficult process that takes several hours, but Wanda guides your movements as you delicately manipulate the carbon fiber of the EXO-7 back to its original state. 

Sam is surprised when you knock on his bedroom door with his gear in hand, Wanda hovering at your shoulder with crossed arms. You expect harsh words from him when you murmur an apology, head bowed. Instead, he surprises you with an easy, charming smile. 

**

You know it’s only a matter of time before your newly kindled friendship with Sam and Wanda is bound to run you into Steve. Ironically, you don’t see him when he enters the empty training room. You stand surrounded in stardust and pressure and when he calls your name, you quite nearly blow out the windows.   

He’s dressed leisurely for his own workout in a cotton T-shirt and joggers, already winding his hands with boxing wraps. It’s not his trademark suit, but you know nothing with Steve Rogers is ever really leisurely. 

“Mind if I join you?”

_ Yes, _ you have the luxury of inwardly thinking without Wanda nearby. You and Steve have kept your distance since that fateful night when the team had found you, your sole interactions outside of that being his brute training when he and Natasha are pushing you to the brink of collapse. It’s your first time alone with him without the others, your mediators. You feel vulnerable, a wisp of azure fire flickering in your eyes. You want to send him into the wall like you had in your first encounter.

“That depends,” you bite and eye his wrapped hands. “Think you can dance and talk at the same time?”

His lips curve into a hint of a smirk. “I think I can manage.” 

The two of you square off. You set up your guard, knuckles whirring with indigo. Your expression is hard, stance set. Steve looks terrifyingly intimidating. He throws the first punch, an easy jab to your right side, warming up.

“What brings you down so late?” You ask with an even breath. Training has toned your body and physique, brought out muscles you never knew existed. Combined with your abilities, sparring with Rogers is like sparring with anyone else, an even match of strength and power. 

Truthfully, you don’t care for Steve’s answer. But you’re curious to know the reason for him invading one of your few private spaces in the Avengers facility.

“Couldn’t sleep. You’re not the only one with nightmares.” Steve huffs. You inwardly roll your eyes. Is this pity?

He slides into a left-hand cross and you block, throw him back the same combination.

“Why don’t you ask Wanda to help? She seems to know her way around that sort of thing.”

Steve bounces on the balls of his feet, weaves out of your reach. “I don’t want to burden her more,” he says. “Some memories never go away no matter how hard you try.”

_ If only you knew _ , you think. You remember the crush of death, feeling Pietro’s bullets shred through you when Wanda had linked your minds. You think of your own nightmares. 

His ignorance is getting you heated, fueling your strength. You mirror his movements, light on your toes when he moves forward with two quick jabs. You roll, hit him with a right hook. 

“Enlighten me.”

He blows out a breath, see animosity flicker across his features when you don’t let up, one, two, three hits that force him to circle tight. The air around the two of you ripples with gravity and tension.

“Old friends. Bucky. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about what I let happen to him.” 

“What’s that?”

You know. The whole world does. Hell, you remember they put together a whole goddamn exhibit for Rogers and his Howling Commandos at the Smithsonian. But you want to hear it from him. 

“The wrong people got to him.” Steve punctuates and his knuckles kiss the skin of your cheek. You raise your guard, forearms and psychological shields alike. 

Nothing you didn’t know already. Steve’s compassion, this act that he somehow understands you, wants to open up to you, is all a facade. 

For a split second, Steve idles, eyes studying your blazing fists, the shard in your chest. You feel heat and color flare up through the skin of your neck and seize the opportunity to land another solid hit. 

You bounce in place. Sweat glistens your skin, curls the ends of Steve’s hair falling in his eyes. The two of you are getting fatigued, sloppy formations and muscles burning with exhaustion. Irritable, cross.

“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. You or Bucky.” He says.

Anger and malice burn up within you like hellfire. Bucky. Childhood friend he had let slip between his fingers. Brain scrambled by HYDRA, sent out into the world like an attack dog to destroy and kill. More blood on Steve’s hands that he has washed clean recruiting you. 

That’s what you are to him, redemption in its most selfish form. 

You amplify the gravity field surrounding you, feel your limbs dip with pressure, scream in protest. You want Rogers to feel  _ this _ . You rotate your body, generate enough energy to make your ears sing as you wind into a low uppercut. 

“But it happened.” You rasp. Your fist connects, splitting his lip and sending him onto his back, winding him. You stand over him, glow with star power and heat. Steve looks up at you.

The two of you try and catch your breath in tense silence. Analyzing and contemplating the other, motivations, failures, hopes.

“And I pay for it every day. Every night.” Steve whispers.

_ You can’t keep blaming others.  _ You remember Wanda’s words.

When Steve gives you his hand to help him up, you swat it away. 

**

Tracking Rumlow is like following a deliberate bread crumb trail across the globe. From what you’ve heard about his taste for extravagance, you know it has to be intentional. The guy craves spectacle. 

You sit with Steve’s unit in the briefing room watching a news report, Wanda and Natasha on either side of you. It’s quiet, save for the chatter on screen. A mercenary donning familiar black tactical gear, now crossed with white, has shot and killed several HYDRA arms dealers and civilians. 

Rumlow. He’s broadcast a message of his allegiance just like you had done. And you let him get away. You shift uncomfortably in your chair. Blood on your hands.

The next time you see him, you’ll crush his bones and armor like you should have.

**

Lagos is humid with dry, pressing heat. Like Natasha, you’ve traded your kevlar suit for a more civilian look. Combat boots, jeans, a chic jacket to blend in among the locals. 

You sense Steve’s protectiveness as he relays intel to you and the rest of the team through your earpiece. You wonder how much of it is motivated by grief, past failures. Bucky. You.

He guides Wanda to observe, pushes her to dissect her surroundings. You do the same. After all, you and Wanda are Steve’s freshest recruits. Little witches, moon and sun.  

When Steve gives you the signal, the two of you redirect Rumlow’s poisonous gas. Wanda works it out of the building, you dissipate it harmlessly into the atmosphere, breaking apart chemical compounds, thinning gravity to carry it upwards faster. Violet light crackles around you. Synergy, unity. 

Steve already has Rumlow subdued when you rendezvous in the market, Sam and Natasha securing the payload. Rumlow looks just as grotesque as you remember. Much to your disappointment, he doesn’t seem to notice you even as your hands crackle with energy. Wanda silently stops you with an arm across your chest.

Rumlow seems to be talking. An odd place to have an interrogation, you think as Steve listens, tense. He grabs him roughly then, shakes him. 

“What did you say?” You hear Steve demand. Rumlow smiles greasily, his face contorting. Sadistic, sick pleasure.

“...He said to me, ‘Please tell Rogers. When you gotta go, you gotta go.’ And you're coming with me.”

A dying confessional.

A split second. You feel it before you see it in your mind’s eye, a powerful pulse behind your eyelids that nearly topples you sideways. The image of bursting flames, of Steve as the burning nucleus, kevlar and vibranium and flesh burning and burning and burning. 

In a moment of extreme panic, Wanda has projected to you Rumlow’s final thoughts, her own fears manifesting into your mind, clear as reality. Her emotions thunderbolt into you, bleed into your bloodstream. Fear, loss, desperation. You feel sick.

The man frozen in time destroyed by fire. Steve dead. Leader, friend, ally. Dead. 

Brother. Pietro. Dead.

You tear your eyes in their direction. Steve is unharmed.

Wanda contains the explosion in a bubble of scarlet. Fire and energy swell, fight for release, working against each other and you can hear her struggling for control, hear Rumlow screaming.

Steve turns in shock. His eyes hold you, then look to Wanda. You feel her panic in you rising and rising, cinching your lungs tight, drown in it. 

Protect. Destruction. Steve. Civilians. 

_ Please. Not Steve,  _ you hear.

And then she slips. A lurch you feel in your chest, your shard. Loss of control. Familiar, deadly.

Rumlow is lifted, a flaming comet that finally detonates, explodes into the side of a building with enough force to blow out the entirety of the south section. Heat, orange smoke, raining debris. 

You all watch, awestruck. Wanda covers her mouth. 

A flash of burning buildings, ‘Stark Industries’ on painted bombshells. Sokovian apartments crumbling into rubble.

A final echo.  _ What have I done? _

**

Wanda cries for hours. She won’t let the others near once you land back at the facility later that night, only you as you guide her to her room. 

Wanda’s bedroom is delicate, sweet. Filled with art and music, books and trinkets. Refuge. Peace. Dreams. Your eyes catch a photograph of young Pietro pinned to her bulletin board. Memories of her own in plain view. Bittersweet, tragic. 

No doubt that news stations worldwide will be airing their breaking stories in a matter of hours. You know the feeling all too well, shoulders heavy with the weight of death. No one will see the vulnerable young woman surrounded with burdened strength and beauty before you. 

You’re both still in your clothes smelling of cinder and fumes when you towel off blood and dirt from her tear-streaked face, ease her down into her made bed from before you and the team had left for Lagos. An inversion of those long nights where Wanda had quelled your nightmares.

You keep the TV off. The silence is filled with her shuddering breaths, sniffling. You still feel her pain, her roil of emotions in your chest, the link between the two of you that she had reopened upon Rumlow’s suicide having never really been closed.

She says your name then, soft, breathless. You look up from arranging blankets and pillows, hold her hazel gaze in the muted light. Her eyes glisten, looking at you with an expression you can’t quite place. 

“When you let me into your dreams, do you know what else I saw?” She asks quietly. Her question hangs in the air. You don’t move, mystified.

She shifts towards you in darkness, irses glowing soft wine. The feel of her fingers cupping the cradle of your face, tilting upwards, her hair tickling your skin...

You taste the salt of dried tears, taste smoke and lingering lipstick. Her mouth is soft and gentle against your own, moving with yours in a way that makes your pulse stutter, makes you think that perhaps Wanda has thought of this before.

Perhaps she has, having already read your mind. 

She straddles your waist, fits herself against you, delicate hands threading through your hair. There’s an underlying sense of urgency when she pushes at your jacket, mouths at the curve of your jaw.

Your blood sings. You’re breathless, gasping for air when you kiss her back, part your lips for her.  _ Years _ of suppression, of pain and catastrophe and want, the crave for affection, surge forth, torrent into lust. Greed to take back something as powerful as this rapture, as Wanda herself, from the broken world that has burdened girls with the crush of space, the oblivion of mind. Infinite power within finite, mortal bodies. Something you can only find in the other. 

All fuel to your fire, your sun as Wanda works at undressing you. The velvet of her lips and tongue has you sighing, anxious to feel more of her. You have indeed  _ dreamed _ of this, tucked back into the furthest corners of your subconscious behind nightmares and resolve.

Wanda feels it too. She’s eager, impatient, breaking the kiss to tug at her own clothes. A growing crescendo of heat in your stomach when she rolls her hips against you. Mewling, panting.

Feline, gleaming eyes find yours when you lay her back, hands gliding beneath fabric to expose skin, holding her still to capture another searing kiss. You want to take care of her, make her forget for just one night. Steve and Lagos and politics will still be there in the morning. Now, with Wanda splayed out beneath you in girlish anticipation, like red dawn with her hair spilling over flushed skin, you want her to forget everything but the sound of your name.

Then, her fingers snag at your chin, forcing you to look at her. Red webs of energy curl from her left hand, dissipate through the skin of your temple to blossom through synapses and nerve endings.

The rush is immediate. Pure pleasure and sin burning bright in your veins, euphoric, making you hum, bold when you press fleeting kisses to her inner thigh. 

“Feel good?” She asks you. You nod through half-lidded eyes, hold her gaze when you swipe your tongue at the most delicate part of her anatomy. Pleasure blooms through your own body as Wanda shudders, a mirror of her sensations. 

You sink deeper, sucking tight, feel her pulse thrumming in time with her sighs. Swirling, the plush heat of your tongue against the dainty pearl of nerves. Wetness pools around your lips, musty and tart and you kiss like you would her mouth, building pressure, hints of teeth.

Slick heat when you add a finger, then two. Coaxing, curling, three fingers and kittenish licks and Wanda is gripping tight to your hair, whimpering in tongues as liquid heat begins to weep down your knuckles.

“Feel good?” You mime.

_ “Oh,”  _ she gasps.  _ “Please.” _

You’re trembling when the coiling ecstasy inside you reaches climax as Wanda arches, pulls you with her motion as you continue with tight suction. Ruby rays shimmer in the darkness, shower the room with soft light as she reaches orgasm, you the equivalent. You’re drunk on it, delirious, watching her glitter with clemency, thighs quivering, shuddering bodies pressed against each other as you catch your breath.

She kisses you lazily, teary-eyed and brimming with bliss, happiness. You tuck her body against yours. A night of peace before the two of you will face the world come first light.

\--

Moonlight shafts through the blinds and shines across the two of you like grated walls. Her fingers trace the glowing shard of blue fire embedded into the skin between your breasts. Shrapnel, cosmic energy exploding into you with all the force of a dying star, now contained within a fragile ribcage, a mortal heart blooming with the afterglow of love’s most intimate act. Eclipse, caged between moonbeams and Wanda’s arms. 

Yet, you’ve never felt more free. 


End file.
